Correction officers hurt by prison closings

By DONN ROWE, Commentary

Published 11:31 pm, Tuesday, February 5, 2013

When Superstorm Sandy hit New York City, correction officers stayed at their post to secure Bayview Correctional Facility in Manhattan, even after all the inmates had been evacuated to safety. For these correction officers — members of the New York State Correctional and Police Benevolent Association — putting themselves on the line to protect the public is an everyday job requirement, and Sandy was no exception.

Now that the waters have receded, we are facing another storm. But this one's man-made — and, thankfully, preventable.

Two years after closing nine correctional facilities, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is again looking to shutter prisons to help balance the state budget. This is not only bad public safety policy, effectively jamming more inmates into fewer prisons. It will also make correction officers' jobs more dangerous and damage the state's financial recovery.

The prison population is down from the record over-capacity numbers it reached in the early 1990s, but our system was never built to hold that many inmates in the first place. By continuing to close prisons across the state, we're coming dangerously close to the old days of warehousing inmates in prisons that are already past acceptable inmate-to-officer ratios. Officers are more likely to be assaulted, further proving these jobs to be some of the most dangerous in the state.

The two facilities proposed for closure this year — Bayview in Manhattan and Beacon Correctional in the Hudson Valley — employ more than 160 correction officers and, until Superstorm Sandy hit, housed 285 inmates. Both Beacon and Bayview provide critical alcohol and substance abuse treatment programs as well as work release initiatives. Keeping inmates active and productive while they are incarcerated helps them build the necessary skills to re-enter society, and it keeps correction officers safe.

Closing Bayview would also mean shutting down the only women's correctional facility south of the Tappan Zee Bridge, making it harder to incarcerate women in facilities near their homes. Since the vast majority of inmates return to their home communities after serving their sentences, we think that would be a mistake.

These closures would also push correction officers further away from their families and home communities. The governor's proposal to close Beacon and Bayview comes on the heels of previous closures that displaced more than 500 correction officers.

With hundreds of officers affected by the 2011 closures still waiting for transfers closer to home, closing two more correctional facilities will only make the problem worse — and will force even more correction officers out of the job or away from their families.

Donn Rowe is president of the New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association.